Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Eric from the one you feed with
Speaker 1: another mini episode, and I'm doing this one sort of
Speaker 1: on the spur of the moment. I'm in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and I was just about to do an interview with
Speaker 1: a Buddhist teacher that I really admire, and we had
Speaker 1: skype problems and we're unable to do the interview, so
Speaker 1: I'm changing gears here. I am staying with my friend Joe,
Speaker 1: who has been extraordinarily kind this morning and trying to
Speaker 1: make this a good interview spot, hanging curtains, doing all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. So I'm grateful for that. And I
Speaker 1: think that's what I want to talk about for the
Speaker 1: mini episode is gratitude. It's something that is so overused
Speaker 1: these days and talked about so often that it's easy,
Speaker 1: at least for me, it's very easy to sort of
Speaker 1: file it under the yeah, I know about that category
Speaker 1: and and yes, I've done that before category. What I
Speaker 1: find interesting about that, though, like like everything else, and
Speaker 1: we've we've talked about this before, is that knowing about
Speaker 1: it and knowing that I've done it in the past
Speaker 1: and knowing that it's good is not nearly the same
Speaker 1: thing as actually doing it. So I've talked on the
Speaker 1: show about in the past about the the alphabet gratitude game,
Speaker 1: you know, where you start with an A and trying
Speaker 1: and think of something you're grateful that starts with a B,
Speaker 1: et cetera, which is a great thing to do. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing that I've done with a
Speaker 1: good deal of success at different points in the past
Speaker 1: is to try and keep it just a daily list
Speaker 1: or as often as I think of it list. I
Speaker 1: use the word gratitude, and I also swapped the word
Speaker 1: appreciation in a lot, because gratitude tends to be like,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that I have a roof over my head,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that I have food to eat, whereas appreciation
Speaker 1: tends to be, at least for me, it's more like
Speaker 1: appreciating beauty. I I appreciate the sunset, or I appreciate
Speaker 1: the taste of this food, or or what that flower
Speaker 1: smelled like. And so what I realized, though, is I
Speaker 1: went and I've got a little app on my phone
Speaker 1: that I use, and I opened it up the other
Speaker 1: day and I was like, you know, it's been damn
Speaker 1: near a month since I opened this thing up, and
Speaker 1: and did that list. Now I've you know, these things
Speaker 1: float through my head. But the interesting thing about doing
Speaker 1: that consistently in that app is that when I do that,
Speaker 1: I sort of train my brain to be looking for
Speaker 1: those things during the day because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I'm going to be recording them. And it's
Speaker 1: amazing to me how when I do that consistently, it
Speaker 1: changes my mindset from what sometimes is a default We've
Speaker 1: talked about the negative default mindset, the mind that is
Speaker 1: evolutionarily programmed to be looking out for threat. It helps
Speaker 1: counter that a little bit with a mind that's trying
Speaker 1: to look for things that are positive, things that I appreciate.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that that little app it's called
Speaker 1: I think it's called gratitude. By the way, there's probably
Speaker 1: five of them out there and they're probably all the same. Um.
Speaker 1: But it also allows me to take a picture each
Speaker 1: day that I can put in there with it. But
Speaker 1: all that is not really as important as the as
Speaker 1: the overall piece, which is really two things that that
Speaker 1: I was thinking about. One was Wow, it's really useful
Speaker 1: when I do that because it trains my mind to
Speaker 1: be looking for the positive, looking for more appreciative things.
Speaker 1: And even though I know that gratitude is a good thing,
Speaker 1: even though I've done it before and had success, even
Speaker 1: though I've got the skills, even though I've read a
Speaker 1: thousand articles about it, all that is entirely pointless if
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it on a regular basis the same
Speaker 1: way that knowing that exercise is good for me, knowing
Speaker 1: that meditation is good for me, all those things don't
Speaker 1: really add any value until I go and do them,
Speaker 1: and that is ah at least, maybe I keep talking
Speaker 1: about it because it's a lesson that I need to
Speaker 1: keep learning. But I have a tendency to file those
Speaker 1: things under the yes, I've heard about it, I've done
Speaker 1: that category and be looking for the thing that I
Speaker 1: haven't done, or I haven't heard of, or I haven't tried,
Speaker 1: which can often simply just be a way of avoiding
Speaker 1: doing things that are challenging because all those things take
Speaker 1: some degree of effort, and as we've talked about before,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a tendency to to go for the
Speaker 1: thing that requires the least effort. So that is what
Speaker 1: is on my mind this morning. From lovely San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have the honor of meeting a few
Speaker 1: people who are listeners of the show today out and
Speaker 1: around the city. So I'm excited about that and we'll
Speaker 1: talk against soon. New episode out on Tuesday. As always,
Speaker 1: I say it often, but I want to say thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening being part of the show.
Speaker 1: It means a lot to Chris and I. Feel free
Speaker 1: to write us, contact us. We always love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. It's uh, it's a special part of our life.
Speaker 1: So have a great week and we'll talk again soon, Okay.
Speaker 1: By