Ready to positively transform your life? We know, you've probably heard it all before. But, backed by a multitude of studies, we unravel the fact that practicing gratitude can lead to improved mental and physical health, increased happiness, and fortified relationships.
Gratitude is in fact a "mind muscle" that may be built, strengthened, and refined over time. By routinely practicing gratitude, you truly can turn it into one of your superpowers and enhance your way of being. Gratitude comes in many shapes and forms, it's not "one size fits all."
This episode will provide the what, why, and how behind gratitude and developing your superpower!
Thank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.
Keep in touch below!
Ready to positively transform your life? We know, you've probably heard it all before. But, backed by a multitude of studies, we unravel the fact that practicing gratitude can lead to improved mental and physical health, increased happiness, and fortified relationships.
Gratitude is in fact a "mind muscle" that may be built, strengthened, and refined over time. By routinely practicing gratitude, you truly can turn it into one of your superpowers and enhance your way of being. Gratitude comes in many shapes and forms, it's not "one size fits all."
This episode will provide the what, why, and how behind gratitude and developing your superpower!
Thank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.
Keep in touch below!
A lot of people that would kill to have this walk right now. Think about how many times you are doing something that somebody else would love to be able to do, something that may seem inconvenient to you at the moment. Whether it's a long walk or carrying your groceries in the house, folding your laundry, you know how many people would love to be able to do that, especially if that's your biggest problem that day. Welcome to the Win Today podcast, a weekly tool intentionally crafted to help people enhance performance, feel inspired and conquer life. Our commitment is that you will learn from some of the most disciplined, heartwarming and inspiring people on the globe, in addition to receiving a piece of a winning playbook from myself or a renowned expert in their field. My name is Ryan Cass and I am your host, and it is my purpose in this world to inspire people, to establish a foundation for sustained success by developing systems that will enable you to accomplish your goals, break systemic trends of adversity and chart a desirable course for life. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please help us achieve our vision of becoming one of the top podcasts in the world by subscribing to the show, sharing it with somebody who you believe will benefit from it and leaving a review, let's connect with our guest. If nothing stimulates you, simply note that your homeostatic lungs suck air into your body without prompt pumping life force, energy around your earth rover. It's a veritable miracle. Everyone has something to be grateful for, even if it's the mere fact that you are alive. At this point, the folks suffering from depression are rolling their eyes while declaring I've got nothing to live for. Yes, I've heard that one before, and so even that truth has an alternative viewpoint. If you are at rock bottom and your life feels utterly joyless, pointless even, and you cannot find anything worth celebrating, then change your life. Yes, you heard that, right, what you're not changing, you're choosing. That's an excerpt from how to Die Happy, and the author, Martin O'Toole, that we just had on the podcast two episodes ago, and this comes from one of the later chapters in the book about gratitude is your superpower For many of us across the world. We just celebrated Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to you, whether you celebrated it or not.
Speaker 1:I am thankful that you're tuned into this episode right now and I'm going to focus on gratitude why it's important, how you can incorporate this practice into your life with the intent that it serves you well and it becomes a tool that you can use to boost your mood, boost your way of being, boost others around you and flip the script on many situations that we encounter in life. With anything that's presented to us, I believe there's always some good in it if you're able to flip the script on it, if it's something that initially doesn't seem positive. And I do believe that gratitude is in fact a superpower, as Martin O'Toole exclaims in his book and through a lot of his work, which I've become a huge fan of. So, first off, why is gratitude important? I believe it's something that we hear often Be grateful, practice gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. I always like to share the facts on here's why this is really important, besides just what you may hear on social media, which at times can be a little woo-woo in my opinion. So why is gratitude important?
Speaker 1:So here's one that I found through Harvard Health, and these are two psychologists based out of the University of California and University of Miami, and they grabbed three groups of people. The first group was asked to write about things that they were grateful for that had occurred during the week. The second group wrote about daily irritations and frustrations. And the third group wrote about things that affected them, with no emphasis on whether it was positive or negative, and after 10 weeks, those who wrote about the things they were grateful for showed that they had exercised more, had fewer doctor's visits than those who were in group number two that wrote about all the things that irritated them. So just by simply focusing on the things that they were grateful for led them to exercise more and believe. It goes without much saying that when you exercise, you are improving your state of being. You are improving your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health. There's countless benefits beyond exercising, so by expressing what you're grateful for, you are then, in turn, more likely to exercise and experience all of those benefits.
Speaker 1:Another study very similar to the first, conducted from University of Indiana at Bloomington, went a little deeper and looked at brain scans to see if there are any differences in brain imaging patterns from a control group of people that constantly express gratitude versus those that do not, or that also write down things that irritate them versus thinking about things that satisfy them and please them and that invoke gratitude. And while the brain imaging scans were not immediately telling, within three months the first control group that constantly expressed gratitude showed the strongest signs of mental health, and the group that constantly expressed gratitude ended up having the highest mental health scores out of the other control groups. So what this information, what this data suggests, is that gratitude is, in fact, a superpower, and rather it's a muscle that you can build, that as you practice it more and more, your body and mind become stronger, just like the more that you work out. The benefits are far beyond physical. You experience mental health benefits, physical health benefits, emotional health benefits and, as I mentioned earlier, you're creating this drug that is beneficial in so many ways, that promotes longevity, that will bolster happiness all across the board personally, professionally, in your relationships. So there's another one, and for those of you that are in relationships, here is another fun one. And here's a fun one for those of you that are in relationships.
Speaker 1:Another study shows that gratitude expressed routinely in a relationship gratitude between partners, and there's various forms of gratitude it serves as a quote booster shot for the relationship, a daily booster shot. Imagine that, by expressing gratitude regularly to your partner in the various forms that gratitude comes to be, that these couples report being the closest to each other, the most satisfied and happy with their relationships. Obviously, gratitude is not the solo factor to a strong, healthy relationship, but it is one way that you can easily bolster your relationship with someone that is very important to you in your life. Tell them how much you appreciate them, what you love about them, what you find unique about them so many different things and that is how gratitude can serve you in a relationship, and it is proven by various studies, and this one in particular. I just love that. It's the booster shot for your relationship.
Speaker 1:So many reasons why gratitude is important, and it's backed by various studies in science that shows us that by prioritizing gratitude, by identifying things on a daily basis or just on a routine basis, that you will, in turn, improve your general health and well being, you will improve your longevity, you will generally feel happier as an emotion and you will have a stronger relationship. That is why gratitude is so important. These are things that we often hear about in our society. How can we be happier? How can we live better lives? And take note, be vigilant of all the little things that are going well for you, all the things that have served you well, and then you will begin living a much happier life. Build that gratitude muscle. So how do you actually put this into practice in your life, now that you've heard why it's important and you are convinced that this is something you want to start working on, or this is something that you already work on and maybe you want to learn a few new ways to incorporate this practice in your life and build that gratitude muscle, flex the gratitude muscle.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to share a few that I've utilized or know that other people do very well, and I'm going to start off with stating it out loud State the things you're grateful for out loud, whether it's just by yourself or out with other people. One thing that I've gotten in the habit of now in the mornings, when I'm doing my solo runs, or even when I'm walking from my car to my office at work or it's quite a long walk I start calling out things, and I start with the things in the environment, the things that are around me. I'm grateful for the wind hitting my skin right now. I'm grateful for this breeze, grateful for the trees and the pretty view, grateful for my legs and this endurance that I've been given. Usually when I'm running, I'll be running and I'll just spread my arms out completely and I'll be stating all the things I'm grateful for. And there's some cars passing by and they probably think this guy is Freakin nuts or they may already think that because I'm out very early, running shirtless, regardless of the temperature for the most part, and I'm just out there talking to myself and I'm grateful for hearing the sound of my feet hitting the pavement just every little thing I can possibly think of in that moment as I'm Walk into the office. Sometimes I'm even saying I'm grateful for this long walk that allows me to think I'm grateful that I'm even able to walk this distance. There's a lot of people that would kill to have this walk right now. Think about how many times you are doing something that Somebody else would love to be able to do, something that may seem inconvenient to you at the moment, whether it's a long walk or carrying your groceries in the house, folding your laundry. You know many people would love to be able to do that. If, especially if, that's your biggest problem, that day which leads me into the Second thing on how to practice gratitude is flip the script on inconveniences. And here's a question that you can put in your back pocket what is this moment, or what did this day Give me, or what is this thing that I'm experiencing right now? What is it giving me? What opportunity Is it providing?
Speaker 1:I was supposed to be interviewed on a podcast last week at 5 30 pm by my friend, chris Chapman, on next level minds, and I left the office slightly after 4 4 15. Typical commute home is anywhere from 20 to sometimes a little over 30 minutes, depending on traffic. So I figured leaving the office at 4 15 will give me ample time to prepare for the interview and Take care of the dog, do everything I need to do so that come 5 30. I'm logged on and ready to roll. As I get on the road and hit the freeway there is a complete stoppage of the freeway and sitting there for 20 extra minutes. So I text him saying hey, might be a little late, but we should be able to get started by 5 45, and then that turned into Might be a little bit longer. 6 pm the highway gets completely shut down to where they turn us around, go in the opposite way and have to take a detour home, or rather got to take a detour home, so I didn't get home until Close to 7 pm. It's about an hour and a half commute, versus the normal 25 to 35 minutes, and In that moment I could sit there and be upset for something that I can't control, or and this is what I did was I got to tune into an awesome Ed Milet and Brennan Brashard podcast.
Speaker 1:So what is that moment giving me right now? Now I get the opportunity, I'm grateful for the opportunity that I get to listen to this podcast with Ed Milet and Brennan Brashard. In that moment, I got to talk to my girlfriend for about 20 minutes and we actually had the same conversation that you know what. I'm grateful that we get to talk to each other right now and I'm grateful that we get to listen to this podcast. Like one thing I really appreciate about her is her mindset, and it was really cool just hearing us both talk about like okay, yeah, I'm stuck in traffic, but how cool is it that we get to tap into these resources now?
Speaker 1:So that's number two is Flip the Script. We started with notice the things around you flip the script and my personal favorite that I talk about all the time is write it down. Get a gratitude journal or just get in the habit of every day writing down the things that you are grateful for, and it doesn't have to be this monstrous list. It could be one thing that day, it could be a few things that day, it could be anything that made you feel good, but getting in that habit of writing it down repeatedly will again put you in that grateful state that's going to bolster your mood and do so many things for you. So those are my top three ways that you can build your gratitude muscle.
Speaker 1:Why it's important and the last one I stole this from my friend, jen Drummond, who's been on the podcast a couple times Write a gratitude letter every day. So that's my challenge for the month is writing 30 gratitude letters for November A little behind right now, but I've just been passing those out to people and it has absolutely been making their day just by getting a little token of appreciation hey, I appreciate you for XYZ and writing that down and giving it to a person. Holy smokes people. You would think that you just gave them a million dollars. Test these things out. Build your gratitude muscle, not just for the month of November, but practice these things and experience a renewed and optimized state of being. Thanks so much for tuning in and win today.