The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 62 - Gratitude

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Happy belated Thanksgiving? Am I saying it right?

Jen: [laughter] Yes, you are saying it right.

Pete: Yes! So, for those that might not know, Thanksgiving isn't really something that's celebrated, or known, in Australia. But I do a lot of work with wonderful people like you, and others in North America. And so I'm aware that it 'tis the season of Thanksgiving. But beyond that, I literally have no idea what any of it means. So, I thought you could explain it to me.

Jen: Yes! One of my favorite subjects, which is really what Thanksgiving is all about: Gratitude. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Okay Peter, here we go. Thanksgiving is simply a time to get together with people that you love, both assigned family and/or chosen family, and express your gratitude for the many gifts in your life.

Pete: Ah, I like it. So, gratitude...and I guess, obviously, it's about giving thanks. Right? Like very literally, this is about giving thanks to those who you love.

Jen: Yes. And we thank, you know, we give thanks for the food that we have, and the roofs over our heads, and the communities in which we exist, and the time spent together, and the fact that we get the day off (or, that some people get the day off). And yeah, it's a time to reflect on the, on the good things. It's like a day where people agree to practice good finding.

Pete: Yeah. I love it. Okay. I think I follow. And my first question is- why limit it to one day? It...

Jen: [laughter] Thank you!

Pete: ...like, it feels like an amazing posture that we should have three hundred and sixty five days of the year.

Jen: Well, I agree with you. As a Questioner, I find the date arbitrary.

Pete: [laughter] Arbitrary.

Jen: But the thing I do appreciate is that on a national level, many people (not all people), but many people are granted a day off, which is probably why we relegate the gratitude to this single day. But to your point, if we were all to express our gratitude as a practice, as something that we commit to every day, we might be living in a happier world.

Pete: Yeah. So, whether it's on Thanksgiving or otherwise, I'm curious. What does practicing gratitude look like for Jen Waldman?

Jen: It looks like a couple things. So there are some theoretical notions to discuss, and then some practical application ideas. So, the first thing I want to put out there is that Adam Grant, who is an organizational psychologist, and I'm guessing many people in our audience are familiar with his work...

Pete: Brilliant.

Jen: ...did a wonderful episode of his own podcast WorkLife, which is so good.

Pete: It is good.

Jen: It's such a great podcast.

Pete: With TED right?

Jen: Actually, yes...but now that I'm saying this out loud, I'm realizing that I might be referencing an interview that he did on someone else's podcast, but that is beside the point. So, he did some work on gratitude. And essentially, what he found is that people who keep a gratitude journal, a la Oprah...you know, she famously kept a gratitude journal where at the end of the day, she logged three things she was grateful for. People who keep a gratitude journal do report feelings of fulfillment and happiness, joy, etc. But at the same time, he was also studying what it might mean to keep a contribution journal. So he had one group keeping a gratitude journal where at the end of the day, they were expressing what they were grateful for. And another group at the end of the day, expressing what they had contributed- three things they had contributed in that day. And what he found (and I'm totally paraphrasing his findings), but in essence, the group that kept a gratitude journal reported feeling good. And the group that kept a contribution journal reported higher levels of productivity, in addition to feeling good.

Pete: Wow. That's amazing. So it's not to replace one with the other, but to potentially do both? Do you think?

Jen: Yes. That's what I think it all comes down to. Is, not only being able to take in what's going on around you and feel good about it, but knowing that your contributions will show up in someone else's gratitude journal. So it's worth focusing on the ways in which you're showing up and contributing as a member of your community, to the world around you, to your family, to your workplace, etc.

Pete: Hmm. It's wild because the very practical process that I have for capturing gratitude, I'm realizing now is also, it also has a process of capturing contributions. Which I'm kind of only just putting together now. And that is- I use the Five Minute Journal, I've mentioned it a few times, which is by a company called Intelligent Change. And, the idea is you spend a couple of minutes in the morning and a couple of minutes at night answering a series of questions/prompts. And one of them is: What are three things you're grateful for? So I guess that's borrowed from Oprah, maybe, or other people that have written about the idea of capturing three things you're grateful for. Another one of the questions is: What are three things that would make today great? Which isn't necessarily the contributions part. But I think the contributions part comes at night, which is something like: What are three amazing things that happened today? Or: What are three great things that happened today? And so it's not directly asking you, "What are three contributions you made that day?". Actually, I'd probably prefer that question.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: But the practice and the process of, like, reflecting on three awesome things that happened today, either as a result of your actions or just as a result of your observations, I think is equally as impactful as the three things you're grateful for. So that is interesting, that it all ties back to Adam Grant as well. Hmm.

Jen: I love it because there is a, a balance of input and output. That you're giving yourself the space to take things in, but you're also holding yourself accountable for putting things out.

Pete: Hmm. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So you mentioned "practically", in terms of how you think about, and apply gratitude. Have you got...? So I mentioned I use a Five Minute Journal, I capture things in there. I have other ways that I think about, and capture gratitude. But I'm curious, have you got any in particular? Like, do you have a journal like Oprah?

Jen: Yep. Uh, no I do not keep a gratitude journal, but I have two practices that are pretty disciplined and regular. So one is much easier to explain, which is I live by the philosophy: When you see good work, express gratitude for it.

Pete: Nice.

Jen: So, any time I read something that's interesting to me, or I see a piece of art that I love, or I hear a piece of music that moves me, I reach out to the person who made it and thank them for the work that they do. So that is one, easy to do practice.

Pete: Love it.

Jen: The other thing is something that we do in the studio, which is: the gratitude portion is one part of a four-step...I don't know if I would call it a process, or a practice that we use. So, the four steps use three different tools. First- Creative Visualization. Second- Affirmation. And, Third: Gratitude. So in the visualization portion, I lead people through this exercise of visualizing an obstacle or challenge, and then we do...it's sort of hard to explain. We do a visualization exercise where they expel this obstacle or challenge using their breath. And then taking that space that they've just created for themselves, we identify a creative desire, create a visualization for it, and again, using the breath, bring it into themselves. Once we feel full of creative desire, then we move on to positive affirmations, and we have five scripted affirmations in the studio. And then after we have people repeat that out loud many times over, I ask them to create their own affirmation and speak it out loud. And that is a big risk for people. So they do that and then once they've taken that risk, then we move into a period of gratitude. Where I ask them to connect with whatever it is they believe in, and to take sixty seconds to connect to their gratitude for the many, many gifts in their life. And it is...the whole process takes ten minutes. But it's so powerful. Sometimes people end up weeping. Sometimes they're laughing. Sometimes they have had a profound internal shift, that will completely change the way they're showing up in their artistic work. Like, it is amazing to me when you get quiet with yourself and really connect to gratitude, what is possible.

Pete: Yeah. So, can I ask...I just sort of have an interesting observation. Which is, in the example you just described, are they, are they doing it just with themselves in their mind, or writing it down? Are they actually sharing it with one another? Like, are we hearing other people's things that they're grateful for?

Jen: Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, I left out that part. Um. We are laying down in the dark.

Pete: Whoa. So it's...

Jen: [laughter] I forgot to mention that part.

Pete: [laughter] That feels like an important point.

Jen: Yes. So, it is a communal experience. It's like both communal and individual at the same moment. And when I set up the whole activity, I say, "For the next ten minutes, you're going to be working together, but independently. That means that you might hear someone else interpreting instructions differently than how you would interpret it. And that's fine. We can do this as many different ways as show up in the room.". But they are saying all these things out loud. Like, the breathing of the challenge, and the desire, that takes any form that they want their breath to take. So sometimes it's silent, sometimes it's loud, but then we literally say out loud all the affirmations. The five that I assign them, plus the one that they compose themselves, they speak those out loud. And then the gratitude...typically it's silent, although sometimes people will speak.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, the reason I ask is I'm super curious, at the moment, about the idea of making our gratitude a shared experience. As opposed to...so the Five Minute Journal for example, for me that's, it's very insular. It's me reflecting on things I'm grateful for, and then I shut my journal and no one really sees it, or reads it, or hears it. And that's great for me, but I'm wondering if there's a benefit, an opportunity, a way to share those more publicly, I guess, or with a certain group of people. And, and what's been fascinating is I, I run a...I'm loath to use the term "Mastermind Group" because I don't love that term. But I run a group, that's essentially a Mastermind Group, of some of the most amazing changemakers that I know, that you know as well, in the, in the arts that are doing really, really interesting and meaningful projects, that are seeking to create amazing change. And we were talking about gratitude, and the Five Minute Journal recently. And one of them had this great idea to start a Five Minute Journal Slack channel. And instead of them all writing down in their notebook at home on their own, they posted in this channel. And so what's happening is, they're all reading one another's things that they're grateful for. And they're all reading one another's awesome things that happened today. And it's kind of been really quite profound to see, and hear, and read themes, and things that we as a collective "we" are thinking about, and grateful for, and noodling on. As opposed to how I've always thought about it in the past, which is- this is me and my notebook, and it's very insular. So, curious about that, and how we could look outward without gratitude as well. Which I guess is the whole point of Thanksgiving, right?

Jen: Well, you know what that just brought up for me? And I've never thought about this before, until you just said this. But, we all have blind spots in every facet of our lives. Gratitude would be included as a facet of our lives. So while it may have never occurred to me to express gratitude for x-thing, if you, Peter, call out your gratitude for that thing, I might suddenly have a burst of gratitude for the same thing, that I would never have come to on my own.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: So perhaps sharing it...that doesn't mean you gotta go on Facebook and post it everywhere. But sharing it with a group of people you trust might actually increase the amount of gratitude that you are capable of feeling.

Pete: Yeah. So on that, there is a friend of the show, Ryan Jennings from New Zealand (shout out Ryan, if you're listening), who taught me something really...

Jen: Hey Ryan!

Pete: ...taught me something quite amazing about...when thinking about good finding and gratitude, and we were kind of talking about random acts of kindness, which I think is all related to this idea of gratitude and good finding. And one thing he would think about is the multiplier effect, or the ripple effect. And so he would say to himself, "Who is someone that I can see, and give gratitude to, and give some good finding towards that is potentially going to interact with and multiply that gratitude, like ten times over.". And so, the example he used was a barista in a cafe. And so he struck up this amazing conversation with the barista in a cafe. He said, "I see you here every day, you make the best coffee in this particular town. I want to give you a $50 tip.". And did this, like, whole amazing gratitude, good finding piece. And his assertion was: Two hundred people might come and interact with this person over the course of the next twenty-four hours. And that, positively impacting the life of that barista, in theory will have a ripple/multiplier effect of all the other people that come into contact with them. So I just loved that frame, of like, how can I level up my gratitude and generosity and, and, like, spread that to more and more people so that all of us can experience more gratitude, all of us can experience more joy. So. The multiplier effect.

Jen: Gosh, I love that. I love that so much because it's true. I mean, there was...I can't imagine that we have the same commercials here in the States that you have in Australia. But there was this series of commercials (I can't even remember what it was for), where the message was: "Kindness, pass it on.". And then you would see this sort of chain reaction of somebody smiling at someone else, and then that person holds the door for someone else, and then the person who had the door held helps someone across the street who's having trouble, etc, etc. But it's...in, in real life and not in the commercials, I can imagine that brightening someone's day by just calling out your gratitude for the work that they're doing could have such a profound impact not only on them, but every single person they come into contact with. I love that so much.

Pete: Yeah. I think it's a, it's such a brilliant practice. And I would say there's an important distinction to make, with all of this around good finding and gratitude, which is doing it without an attachment to an outcome. So like, we're not giving gratitude because we know that that person now owes us a favor and we're going to get a free coffee tomorrow. Like, you've got to unattach yourself from that. It's literally...

Jen: Nooo.

Pete: ...it's finding good in others for the sake of finding good in others. There's no, like, benefit to you, other than feeling good that you found good for other people. So just calling that out. Because this is, you know, not about manipulation, and like, "I'm going to get something out of this.".

Jen: I love that so much. So as we come to the end of this Thanksgiving season, I would like to call out my gratitude for you, Peter Shepherd. I was talking to my daughter the other day about- it's just so weird how the dominoes fall in life and that, like, one slight little shift can completely change your trajectory. And I, if I hadn't done that bad math when I signed up for the altMBA and ended up with a different coach, who knows what either of us would be doing right now in this very moment...

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: ...besides recording this podcast with each other? And I'm, I'm grateful for our partnership. I really am.

Pete: Me too, Jen Waldman. I am also grateful for bad math, and your inability [laughter], your inability to calculate the difference between Pacific time and Eastern time. And I'm...and the, the other thing I guess to throw out there- two other things I'm grateful for, if we're doing three. So, one is you and bad math. Thank you, for everything. Another one is our listeners, who are out there listening to this.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: Thank you. I'm so grateful that we even have people listening to this podcast, and giving us feedback, and giving us ideas, and asking us questions. It's very, very fueling for the podcast. And then the third thing is a bit of a silly one, but a necessary one, which is I'm grateful for high-speed internet that allows us to record a podcast from literally opposite sides of the planet. It's crazy, and we're able to do it because of high-speed internet. So I'm grateful for that.

Jen: Wow, there is a lot to be grateful for. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.