133: The Importance Of Gratitude

This is episode 133,

The importance of gratitude.

My name is Tudor Alexander and this is the Dance of Life podcast.

Every week my goal is to inspire you to take action towards what you love,

Live a transformed life,

And enjoy the journey there.

Are you ready?

Let's go!

What's up,

What's up everybody?

Welcome to the show.

Happy Friday to you or whatever day you're listening to this on.

I hope you're having an amazing day.

Albert Einstein once said that there are only two ways to live your life.

One of them is as though everything is a miracle and the other is as though nothing is.

I love this quote.

I'm sure you've probably seen or heard it yourself on social media.

And you know,

It really points to for me is the importance of gratitude.

It's something that I turn to often,

This quote,

To remind me that there really in fact is only two ways to look at the world.

You know,

And if you think about it,

It is true.

One is that you're positive,

That you're full of possibility,

That you're open,

Right?

And the other is that,

You know,

Nothing is working,

That there's no possibility,

That you know,

Nothing has value,

That kind of situation.

And that really,

You know,

That really puts it right up in front and center because at the end of the day it means we have a choice and there's not that many choices.

There's only one.

You can either be positive or not.

And so that to me is very profound because it really puts the importance of a continual vigilant awareness over our actions,

Over our days.

Every day you have that choice.

You know,

It's not something that just by default arrives,

Especially,

You know,

I don't know if you guys are familiar with negative bias.

If you've heard of this term,

This is a term that describes our fundamental wiring in our brain that basically we prefer negative situations,

Negative emotions.

Now that doesn't mean like we go and seek those things per se,

But we are hardwired to remember negative things that happen to us more than positive ones.

We are,

You know,

Hardwired to let's say when you get something positive like,

You know,

Something rewarding,

You're hardwired for that to become less rewarding to you over time through desensitization and habituation.

You know,

We're hardwired for assuming things will continue as they are but they actually don't because the world is constantly changing.

So the more you look at all of these different,

You know,

Brain mechanisms,

You know,

They construct a general picture that shows us that it is easier to look at life and see that nothing's a miracle,

To see that the world is separate and out to get us and it's dangerous and and fundamentally flawed and imperfect and all this kind of stuff,

Right?

That's an easier default way to think about it.

And that's the choice that we have to choose every day,

To choose against that,

To choose,

Hey,

Wait a minute,

Life is great.

Life is beautiful.

I have enough.

I have so much,

You know,

That's a choice.

It's a constant choice we have to make because it's not programmed into our,

It's not by default,

It's a habit you have to create and that habit is through a daily gratitude practice.

So today I wanted to share with you some insights about gratitude that have,

You know,

Come into my life over the last few years and especially,

You know,

I'm super excited,

Super,

Super excited to share with you that I am finally done with my book that I've been talking to you guys about.

It's gonna be a book and course.

I'm super stoked to share it with you.

This is not gonna be a sales episode by any means,

But of course,

I'm gonna shamelessly promote this.

I super encourage you to go check it out.

I mean,

I'm so proud of this,

You know,

This is my first book and it's gonna be a book and course.

So it's you,

The book is free.

Check it out.

It's the gratitudemap.

Com.

The book is free and then if you want the bonuses,

There's a ton of stuff on there.

It's really not that expensive.

I mean,

These like 40,

50 bucks for everything,

But there's hundreds of dollars worth of courses I'm throwing in there with a workbook,

Audio course,

Guided meditations,

All kind of stuff.

So if if gratitude is something that's important to you,

If creating a daily gratitude practice is important to you,

If having good relationships with other people,

Whether it's romantic relationships or,

You know,

Business relationships,

If that's important to you,

If being more productive is important to you,

Believe it or not,

As I was writing this book,

I had to,

I wanted to create a section called the science of gratitude,

You know,

And to kind of have some of that aspect to it too and learning about how gratitude actually,

The practice of gratitude is something so effective for motivation,

You know,

Kind of blew me on productivity.

It really blew me away because traditionally we think of gratitude as what,

Like this cute little thing that you see,

You know,

Inspirational quotes on Instagram and,

You know,

You get a little boost for the day and that's it.

But in reality,

Like the practice of gratitude,

If you look at all the top successful people in the world,

You know,

Whether it's in religion like the Dalai Lama,

You look at productive people,

Business people,

Tony Robbins,

Dean Graziosi,

All these people you constantly see on YouTube and Facebook,

All of them have one thing in common.

And,

You know,

There are many things in common,

But let's say if we pick one good thing,

That's the baseline thing that we can all do,

Is that they have a fundamental appreciation for life.

None of them are negative.

They don't have time to be negative.

None of them see the world as lack of possibility.

You have to constantly be in that mode,

You know,

The one that Albert Einstein said,

Which is basically you see that everything is a miracle.

When you can operate from that mode,

Then you are productive,

You are motivated,

You are inspired,

Right?

So that's how gratitude connects to productivity and to motivation because gratitude,

The practice of gratitude,

Allows us to be filled up with that present moment,

To be totally in awe at the miracle that is life,

Right?

So check it out,

Thegratitumap.

Com.

I've also got now some free lessons on my website,

Too.

So there are three free audio lessons with a little PDF workbook,

Totally free.

It gives you a little sneak peek of some of the stuff in the book if you're curious about kind of dipping your toes that way as well.

But I'm super excited to share this project with you guys.

So thank you so much.

So the importance of gratitude,

This is what I want to talk to you guys about today and kind of introduce because the next couple months,

I'm going to actually take a lot of the material from the book.

I'm going to double up on episodes,

You know,

So usually been doing this once a week.

But I,

For the next couple months,

I really want to share all these things with you in the book that I've written about,

Which is,

You know,

The habits of gratitude.

What are 12 different habits that we can employ in our lives to create an effective daily gratitude practice?

What are the obstacles to gratitude?

There's eight main obstacles that we have to continually navigate out of.

You know,

How do we create abundant relationships with others?

How can we maximize our fulfillment through generosity?

All these things are in the book.

And I want to kind of double up on my episodes.

So you'll be you'll be enjoying those.

I'm going to try to do them on Mondays and Fridays for you guys.

So Monday will be kind of I think the gratitude episodes and Friday will continue as some of the other stuff that I talk about.

But again,

Gratitude is one of the main things in this podcast that I have found of high value of people have constantly said,

You know,

They love this kind of content.

And I've noticed a huge difference in my own life and the people around me.

You know,

At the beginning of this year,

As I was starting this project,

I started a Facebook group called the Daily Gratitude Practice.

And to be honest with you,

I had no clue how to work a Facebook group.

I've never really done that before.

I had no idea.

But because it had value and again,

I didn't there's no sales,

No promotion,

Nothing in there.

It's really just a space for people to practice gratitude.

It's pretty simple.

I mean,

It took off.

You know,

There's like hundreds of people in there and they're constantly posting.

I don't have to,

You know,

I post little guided posts every day,

Like,

You know,

Post what you're grateful for,

You know,

Just to kind of encourage sharing.

But it's really taken off.

I'm super proud of it.

And a lot of people have said that even just being in the group,

Not necessarily they're posting,

Even just being there and having those daily reminders to get them back in that mode of seeing life as a miracle has has dramatically shifted their life.

I've had a few people tell me that,

You know,

And it for me,

Of course,

You know,

I have to constantly get in that mode.

And I've noticed a huge difference in being able to continually look at the world through a grateful lens.

So why is gratitude important in your life?

Well,

In the West,

Right?

Let me put it this way,

Actually.

In the Eastern traditions,

What you fundamentally see is that the highest experience of life is that you basically disconnect from duality,

From chasing,

From doing,

And just connect to the universal consciousness to just be,

You know,

You see in meditation,

Trance,

All these practices like yoga,

Whatever else,

Right?

It is about connecting to that higher source.

And that is the highest experience of life.

There is nothing to achieve,

You know,

In that sense,

Other than just that connection to the greater self and losing the ego,

Losing having to do anything,

You know.

And that's very interesting because in the West,

We've had kind of the opposite approach.

If you think about West and Western commercialism,

Capitalism,

Progress,

Moving forward,

Achievement,

It's been quite the opposite,

Which is about doing.

Doing and achieving and reaching those milestones and success,

You know,

And ultimately what it comes down to.

If you have listened to this podcast a little while,

You know that I talk about duality and,

You know,

Having pairs of things.

Nothing is just one thing.

Good life is about incorporating both.

That's what to me the dance of life is.

It is the balance of these two opposites that kind of work together through time to create a little spiral,

A little corkscrew through space and time.

You know,

Everything works this way anyway.

You look at the planets,

They don't just go in a circle,

They go in a corkscrew.

You know,

The sun is actually going in a corkscrew around the galaxy and the galaxy is going to cor- You know,

Everything goes this way.

Everything has a spiral mechanic in the universe,

Which is very interesting.

Your DNA,

Same thing.

So it's to be said that there's a pair for everything that moves forward through time.

We talk a lot about the cyclical nature of things.

So when we look at life,

Right,

We look at as a general umbrella,

A huge umbrella,

But let's say we take life and we look at achievement and we look at,

You know,

Being fulfilled,

Right?

Those two are very important.

It's two sides of the same coin.

And what the importance of gratitude is,

Is that it's the other side of the coin of our modern Western life.

You know,

So if you look at our day-to-day life,

It's all about what?

Achieving,

You know,

Getting some sort of benchmark that we measure through money,

Through status,

Through,

You know,

A relationship of some kind,

Whatever.

And that's good,

But there's also a problem with that.

And the problem is that even when you get what you are,

What you think you want,

That you aren't fulfilled by it because you're either burned out or you've chased it or there wasn't the right reason why you were chasing it,

So on and so forth.

And I don't know about you,

But I've been there.

In fact,

A very interesting story to share with you,

And I've shared this before,

I think a couple months ago,

But this happened to me,

It was two stories and both these stories are in the book a little more in detail,

But very crazy how these things happened to me,

Literally within a week of each other.

So I'll try to paraphrase them for you.

So I'll give you a context actually,

Right before all this stuff happens.

So about a year ago,

Actually a little more than a year ago,

I was fired from my,

You know,

Previous job.

I'd been there several years.

I'd given a six-month notice,

You know,

I was asked to do that,

Even though contract was at will,

But anyway,

I was fired.

I had like barely a month of expenses in my,

You know,

Account.

You know,

I sold all my stuff,

Basically moved in with my parents.

It was a pretty hectic little summer.

And by that point in time,

I was 33,

34.

I didn't really have much in my s.

.

.

I didn't have anything in my savings.

I don't know what I'm talking about.

I didn't have anything in my savings.

I literally had a month worth of expenses and that was it.

And so I was like,

You know what?

I.

.

.

That's it,

Man.

I'm like in my.

.

.

Almost my mid-30s.

I have nothing to my name.

Like I'm done.

I'm never going to work for anybody else again and I'm going to make money.

Like I'm going to set my sights on just being successful and money will never be a problem for me ever again.

I just put it in my mind.

And so much so that I'm like,

You know what?

I want to make $10,

000 a month.

That's my first goal.

That's.

.

.

I want to make 10K a month and I'm going to do it by my birthday,

Which at the time was,

I don't know,

Maybe five months away.

So think about that.

I have nothing in my bank account,

You know,

No prospects or anything like that.

And then my goal was to make $10,

000 by.

.

.

In per month,

Not accruing $10,

000 but make $10,

000 in one month by my birthday,

Which is five months later.

That was pretty ambitious in my mind.

You know,

It's a pretty crazy goal.

But sure enough,

One way or another,

Doesn't matter how,

You know,

I'm not going to go into super detail about that because that's not important.

But I did make it,

You know,

And I got to my goal by my birthday and I was astounded,

You know.

And right around that time,

Right around the time as I was reflecting on all this,

You know,

I was like,

Wow,

You know,

I made it.

Okay,

Now what?

You know,

I had been chasing and pushing so hard and really kind of going for it in that sense.

Right around that time,

I had these two experiences happen to me,

Which I wanted to share with you.

That was a real story.

So,

The first one,

Literally,

I was going to get my blood drawn and I was running around and,

You know,

Trying to park my car but I couldn't because there was a valet that was,

You know,

Basically servicing the parking lot.

So,

I didn't want to park valet but I ended up having to and I realized,

Okay,

It's complimentary,

You don't have to pay anything.

But then I feel guilty,

Right?

So,

Because I had money,

I had cash in my wallet but I had a $100 bill and I had a $10 bill.

And I didn't want to give him the $100,

I was being stingy.

I'm like,

Man,

10 bucks is still kind of a lot,

Like I never pay for valet,

You know?

So,

I'm coming down from the blood being drawn,

I'm done with that and I'm still kind of in my head about it.

Like,

Okay,

What do I do?

Like,

Do I give him the money?

Do I not,

You know,

What's the right thing to do here?

I was making a lot of money so I had no,

You know,

Reason not to in that sense but I was still being stingy that day.

I had just,

I wasn't in that possibility mindset,

Right?

I wasn't in the mode of seeing the world as a miracle.

I was seeing like,

Okay,

Me,

Me,

Me and shortage and whatever else,

Right?

Even though I had a lot of money in that sense relatively.

So,

I'm walking,

So I'm like,

Okay,

I need more time to think.

So,

I cut through the rocks,

You know,

As you're walking,

You can walk through the sidewalk but I cut through the rocks.

And as I'm cutting through the rocks,

I see this little piece of paper sticking out of the rocks and I'm like,

No way.

No freaking way.

There's no way this is possible because the piece of paper wasn't just a piece of paper but I recognized it.

As a tea fortune.

It was a specific kind of tea that I was drinking around that time called Yogi tea.

And if you're familiar with this type of tea,

They make like,

It's very cute actually,

They make little fortunes for the tea.

So,

You know,

When you put the tea in there,

You've got a little fortune at the end of the teabag that you can read.

I like those kind of things.

I think they're pretty clever.

So,

But I recognized the shape,

I recognized the color because it's an off-white,

You know,

Like I knew exactly what it was.

I'm like,

No way.

Like,

If this is a fortune about,

And I'm always listening,

I'm always paying attention to the universe in that sense.

I always like to look for those kinds of things.

So,

I'm like,

If this has to do with anything that I'm dealing with right now in my mind,

Like,

I'm gonna just flip.

Like,

There's no way.

So,

I bend down,

I pick it up,

Sure enough,

It is a Yogi tea fortune.

And it's all kind of tattered up and just looks like this perfect kind of cliche ancient message that you would get.

And on it,

I open it,

And I swear to God,

It said,

If we give happiness to others,

We will end up happy.

I'm like,

No way.

This is unreal.

Like,

I'm sitting here debating being a stingy guy about whether I want to share my wealth with somebody,

You know,

And I get literally a message from the universe saying that,

You know,

The key to happiness is basically giving it away,

Right?

So,

That happened,

Right?

And again,

The book goes more into detail about it.

It was a really cool little story.

And then literally a week later,

And this is why these two events together are important to know in regards to our topic of importance of gratitude.

So,

The second,

You know,

Like a week later,

I had been invited to this event.

It was like an author's,

You know,

Book presentation event,

Kind of like where you have your own booth and you talk about your book and that kind of thing.

I didn't really want to go,

To be honest with you.

I didn't get a good vibe from the event.

I was like,

I don't know if it's gonna be worth the money and time to do it.

And I had a good reason too because I had a client on Friday night when it was supposed to be happening.

And then they end up canceling.

So,

My client ended up canceling.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Man,

Now I really don't have an excuse.

Like,

You know,

I go there.

The initial thing was gonna be free and then I knew they were probably gonna sell me on something.

So,

I just really hesitate with those kind of situations.

I'm like,

All right,

You know what?

Fine,

Screw it.

Let me just go and see what's going on.

Against all my,

You know,

Logical reasons,

I decided to go.

Because I still felt there was something.

There was a reason why it had come into my eye.

I was like,

All right,

Let me follow this reason and see what's going on.

So,

I went there and it was at this,

You know,

Shoddy little place.

And to be honest with you,

Like,

The first part was really,

Really weird.

I went there like literally nobody showed up to this event.

It was like an empty set of audience chairs.

And then each speaker was kind of rehearsing some sort of speech and getting recorded with a video.

So,

I don't know if this thing was staged and they didn't intend on anybody coming.

And I just kind of showed up by accident.

Like,

It was a very weird vibe,

Right?

So,

I'm sitting here through like,

I don't know,

It must have been three or four speakers.

And I'm just literally.

.

.

And they weren't,

To be honest,

Like,

I don't want to be mean,

But they weren't the best speakers either,

You know.

Or they just,

You know,

Look,

Kudos to you for getting on stage and working it.

But it just,

You know,

You got to sit through four or five of those things.

You're like,

Okay,

There's nobody in the audience.

This is,

What am I doing here?

This is kind of ridiculous.

So,

Again,

I go back into that mode where,

You know,

Life is not a miracle.

You know,

I'm wasting my time.

I'm losing time.

I mean,

You know,

That scarcity mindset.

And I said,

Okay,

You know what?

One more speaker and that's it.

If this next speaker is,

I swear to God,

If it's like the first three or four sentences,

If they suck,

I'm out.

Like,

I'm a nice guy,

But I got to a critical mass where I just couldn't handle it anymore.

I was like,

I'm just twiddling my thumbs here.

So,

The final speaker gets on and she's definitely a little different than the others.

She's got,

You know,

A little more pep to her voice,

A little more confidence,

You know.

So,

She's talking within,

Like I said,

The first paragraph or so of her presentation.

She says this,

And my eyes like open up like freaking onions,

Man.

She says,

Well,

Even if you had some ridiculous goal,

Like making $10,

000 in a month,

What's the point?

What would be the point if you couldn't enjoy your life?

You know,

Something to the line.

I don't remember the exact words,

But it was like exactly that.

The $10,

000 a month.

And she was looking at me and I was looking at her,

I'm like,

What is going on right now?

This is like,

This is some stuff right here.

And what it really,

You know,

So between those two experiences,

Again,

I'll go more into detail in the book,

But,

You know,

Those two experiences,

Like,

Wow,

They really flipped my mindset because,

And it was a good timing too because it was early enough in my new adventure as a self-employed person to really calibrate my lens,

If you know what I mean.

So it's like,

You know,

I was,

You know,

I'm not about the money.

For me,

It's never been about the money and I've always tried to do the right thing in business.

I'll put it that way,

You know,

But at the same time,

I was really focused on achievement.

I was really focused on getting that external goal of,

Okay,

I want to be financially independent.

I want to make money.

It was the first time in my life I've ever made any amount of money to that level,

You know,

But it was a great reminder that,

Hey,

While you're doing all that achieving,

While you're pushing yourself and reaching your milestones,

Remember also what matters most,

Which is A,

Being generous to others,

B,

Being grateful,

You know,

Having a sense of purpose and why and fulfillment every step of the way that you do it.

So these two experiences inspired me to write a book on gratitude.

You know,

I had been blogging about gratitude actually for about three or four years now,

But it wasn't really anything that was seriously devoted to,

You know.

It wasn't really,

I was like,

Okay,

It'll be a cool topic every now and then to think,

But it wasn't something I was like,

Man,

I need to do this every day.

Every day I need to,

You know,

Enumerate things that I'm grateful for,

Have a gratitude session,

Tune into nature,

Be still,

All these kinds of things that I wrote about in the book as far as daily,

Effective daily habits.

Like,

I didn't see a need to do that every day until these situations happen.

And the importance of gratitude,

Again,

Goes back to whatever you want to achieve,

You know,

You have to be fulfilled by it at the same.

The external achievements mean nothing without a sense of fulfillment there because even if somebody gave you,

Like,

Let's say somebody gave you the most expensive whatever,

Right,

But you don't really want it,

Then there's no point,

Right?

How many times have you gotten a gift?

I know I have,

Let's say from your family or whatever else that you didn't really want,

Even though they spent money on it,

Maybe to somebody else,

It'd be like,

Holy smokes,

This is awesome.

You know,

But to you,

Let's say you didn't want it,

It wasn't something you're into,

Like,

It's meaningless,

Right?

So the value of our own achievements,

Even the ones that we project,

I mean,

How many times have you projected a goal?

Again,

It happens to me all the time.

That's why I have really tried to embrace a gratitude practice,

Which is,

You know,

You project something that you want to do and you get all hyped up about it.

But ultimately,

To do it,

You know,

To really achieve it,

There's a wall of failure and resistance and time and resources and all this kind of stuff,

Conflict that you have to pass through to get what you want.

And on the way there,

This is called the swamp to me,

As I talk about in the book,

Which is the marsh of obstacles that you have to navigate because on the way there,

In between you and your dream and your goal,

There is all these obstacles,

You know,

All these things that kind of distract you and then pretty soon you find yourself spinning on what you don't like about what you're pursuing.

Even the things that you love can easily turn and get corrupted into things that you hate or you find as a burden,

You know,

Because we aren't constantly checking in to what truly matters.

You know,

Like today,

I'll give you an example.

I had somebody ring the doorbell in the morning and it kind of woke me up.

I'm like,

What the heck,

You know,

Like it's not a package.

Usually,

They just drop it off.

So,

I go and check the door and it was like a,

What do you call it?

It's just like this little thing you hang on your doorknob,

You know,

Where it advertises different things,

You know,

Like a little,

I don't know what the word for it is now,

But anyway,

They hang those things on your doorknobs with an advert.

It was a real estate agent.

So,

I'm like,

You got to be kidding me.

Like,

Okay,

Whatever,

That's fine.

I threw it away.

I go back in my room.

I try to lay down a little bit more.

Then the doorbell rings again.

I'm like,

I swear to God,

If this is the same person,

Like I'm going to be pissed,

You know.

So,

I opened the door and sure enough,

It's actually a husband and wife team.

And so,

It was the husband this time.

And,

You know,

Mornings for me are not the easiest.

I'm not a morning person necessarily.

And I was kind of cranky,

You know,

And just,

He's just,

You know,

I respect it.

He's hustling.

He's trying his thing.

I got it,

You know.

And looking back on it now,

You know,

I wish him the best.

You know,

By the time I was definitely not having it,

You know,

And just,

He's telling me about what he's doing.

I'm like,

That's great,

Man.

Like,

Okay,

Cool.

I'm ready to close the door on you,

You know.

And then it's like,

Okay,

After that experience happens,

Normally,

Okay,

It's done.

But it's not done in a sense.

In our minds,

We're still P.

O.

Ed,

You know,

About having been woke up.

I lost more sleep time.

You know,

I'm annoyed that he would disrupt my sleep or that I had to explain it again or whatever.

You know,

You have all these things,

Emotions that you feel that,

Okay,

Like,

I don't have time to hang on to this because I need to be productive today.

Like,

I'm not going to waste another hour thinking about,

You know,

How to just get this guy,

Like,

Woke me up or whatever.

You know,

It's fine.

At the end of the day,

It's not a big deal.

But our ability to not spin on these little.

.

.

This is a silly example.

But,

You know,

There's more serious things that happen.

Let's say you get a flat tire.

Let's say,

You know,

Somebody breaks up with you.

Somebody,

You know,

You get fired,

Whatever.

Like,

There's stuff that happens all the time.

Life is constantly changing in ways that we cannot predict and control.

And that is the nature of the beast.

So,

On your way to what you love,

How you deal and navigate through this swamp,

Right,

Is the key.

Because there are many ways for you to get distracted and just start spinning in place.

And that's where gratitude comes in place.

Because gratitude fills your cup again.

All these things that happen,

What they do is they ultimately empty your cup,

Right?

You waste some sort of emotion and energy and attention on these situations.

And that's inevitable because we are hardwired,

Again,

The human mind.

We're hardwired to value change.

So,

When something changes,

You know,

I study this through dancing because that's how you get people's attention when you're competing.

Dancing,

There's no finish line.

So,

It's whoever creates the most interesting changes in their body and choreography with their partners that really gets your attention.

So,

What we're hardwired to do is to prefer change.

You know,

I heard this quote.

It's really,

Really cool.

It was in a webinar.

It says,

Different is better than better.

Remember that.

Different is better than better.

What a cool quote,

Huh?

Like,

Different is better than better.

It's better to be different than to just take the same thing and make it better.

And why is that?

Because that speaks to the fundamental truth that we are looking out for change all the time.

You know,

If something's changing,

It's important and it gets our attention.

So,

What happens inevitably is all these changes,

Especially,

Remember,

Again,

Negative changes,

We get emotional and we commit them to memory.

And as soon as you put emotion in it,

It's much harder to get rid of.

That's your emotions are.

.

.

That's another thing.

Your emotions record memory.

So,

Everything that happens that's negative,

We remember it.

And then,

We kind of start spinning on that and spinning on it and spinning on it.

Whereas gratitude,

The practice of gratitude,

Retrains your mind to get back off of those little swampy areas,

To get back on the path,

To get back on track.

So,

That's why it's so important.

It's literally like breathing and drinking your water and standing up straight,

Brushing your teeth,

All these things that are important for longevity.

And honestly,

I think even more so because all those things are pieces to the physical puzzle.

Whereas gratitude,

You can think of like,

Okay,

Let's say you have a physical puzzle,

Right?

Let's put numbers on it.

So,

Part of that physical puzzle is drinking water.

Let's say that's 10%.

Then brushing your teeth,

That's another 10%.

You know,

Standing up straight.

That's another 10%.

You know,

Eating right for your body,

Whatever.

That's another 10%.

You know,

I'm using figures.

But the point is that all these things are pieces that collectively create health.

Well,

Gratitude,

Gratitude is for your mind.

And,

You know,

That's like,

There's not that much else.

It's either gratitude,

Either grateful or remember,

You're not grateful,

Right?

So,

One of the two.

So,

Gratitude is a much larger piece of the puzzle for your mental health and for,

You know,

Your physical health too.

Honestly,

People who are grateful,

You're much less stressed,

Which we all know is one of the main killers.

And you're much more in tune with the important things in life.

You know,

They studied longevity.

And the two most important aspects for living a long life is,

Number one,

Having good relationships with people.

You know,

Productive,

Positive,

Reinforcing connections,

And having a sense of purpose in life.

Well,

I can guarantee you that gratitude,

If you aren't grateful,

If you're negative,

You're not going to have good relationships with people,

Right?

If anything,

You're going to attract toxic people in your life.

And that's going to add to your stress,

You know,

And kill you faster.

And if you're not grateful,

You are not going to be fulfilled either.

You know,

There's the myth of Sisyphus.

If you aren't familiar with that,

It's an old Greek legend about a guy who was cursed to basically roll a boulder up a hill,

And then the boulder would just fall back down,

Then he's got to roll it back up.

And that's eternity for him to do that.

That's an interesting myth to me because,

In a way,

Life is also meaningless as well.

The things that we do,

You know,

When you realize that you're on a speck,

Literally a speck,

Like not even a speck,

A fraction of a speck in this universe,

And you start to realize how things work,

You start to study quantum mechanics,

You start to study reality,

And you start decompiling it and seeing how things actually are.

You know,

Everything is meaningless in that sense.

And I don't mean that in a negative way,

But the point is,

Is that you have to create your meaning and your fulfillment in life.

You know,

Otherwise,

You're just going to roll around like a rock and there's no point,

Right?

So,

Ultimately,

You have to create your meaning.

You have to create what inspires you.

It's up to you to continually act upon the things that you love and to continually fill your glass up.

And you do that through a practice of gratitude.

That's why gratitude is so important.

So,

Check out the book,

Gratitudemap.

Com.

I've also on my website,

If you aren't subscribed to my list,

You can now enter your information and it'll take you,

You'll get three free audio lessons I recorded and you'll get a PDF for all that's for free and you can listen to it.

Yeah,

It's going to tell you about the gratitude map.

Obviously,

They're related,

But that'll give you a sneak peek if you want to dip your toes that way.

If you want to go for the free book,

You have to just pay for shipping.

That's it.

You know,

Obviously,

The shipping covers the cost of making the book and sending it to you,

But otherwise,

It's free.

Shipping is $9.

99.

Free book,

Really good book.

You have a daily gratitude practice Facebook group that's also free.

You can practice basically,

You know,

Every day I encourage people to do some sort of gratitude practice in there,

But it's up to you how you want to do it.

And then with the free book,

You also get two free video trainings.

Like I said,

You have bonuses in there as well.

It's going to ask you to do that.

You know,

If you want to support me,

That's totally freaking awesome and I love you for it,

But you don't have to.

I want to share this message with these people with possible gratitude is the key for life.

It has saved my life and I want it to save everybody else's too because I think ultimately,

This world needs more gratitude.

So looking ahead,

I'm going to be,

Like I said,

Doubling up on episodes.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode.

We're going to get into a lot more detail in the next couple of weeks as I break down individual concepts from the book and kind of share that stuff with you.

So here's my takeaway for today's episode.

The journey of life is half effort and striving against circumstances to obtain what we want and the other half enjoying what we already have each step of the way.

To hold these two perspectives in balance is to dance your way through life and to ultimately avoid the biggest trap,

Which is success without fulfillment.

A daily credit to practice then is not just something useful,

But really necessary for the progressive realization of our biggest dreams,

Because it keeps us grounded,

Refreshed and seen clearly through all of life's changes.

For more episodes and weekly content,

Stay connected at dance of life dot com.