Isn’t it amazing; I know that more people will open this than if I wrote “things are good”.
Don’t you find that amazing?  This is why the media do so well promoting bad news.
People are interested in it.  Humans would prefer to read a negative story than a positive
story.

But I am not here to talk about that today.  I just wanted to get your attention…..

Here we are approaching the end of the year and Christmas… I thought there would not
be a better time to talk about my favourite subjects – contentment and gratitude. Bear with me, because this subject has an enormous influence on the success of your business
and your life.  There is also no better time to discuss this subject.  The video at the end
altered my life forever.

Contentment is the most powerful force in the universe. Contentment lies at the opposite end of the spectrum to worry. Contentment is that feeling of well-being and fulfillment, of feeling good for no apparent reason. I believe that to achieve contentment we must first understand the importance of gratitude.

We all appreciate gratitude when it’s offered.  Let’s say we give someone a gift and they throw it to one side without giving thanks for that gift.  Are we inclined to keep giving that person more gifts in the future?  Do we feel excited about giving that person a gift?  The answer is clearly no.  On the other hand, if we give a gift and receive great appreciation and thanks for it, would we be inclined to give that receiver more gifts?  Of course we would.

The same is true with life. The more we appreciate our gifts and the more gracious and thankful we are, the more we will receive.  Gratefulness is an enormous tool towards reaching happiness and contentment.  Positive things find their way to grateful people.  It’s kind of the way of the universe I guess.

Through life, we experience many good times and many unpleasant times, which is just the way it is.  When you really look at it, those good and those bad times pretty much balance each other out.  The law of equilibrium seems to say, OK you’ve had a pretty good run recently, now here’s a rough patch for you to handle.  Likewise, when our world seems to be turned up-side-down something invariably happens to set it right again.

So if you have had a great year this year – remember – it won’t last.  But at the opposite end of this, if you had a bad time this year, then that won’t last either.

As difficult as it sounds, we need to find gratitude or Contentment in the negative things.  That is it.  That is the simple key.  It isn’t about getting excited about the negative things, it’s about being grateful and contented with the negative things, quietly embracing and understanding them and accepting that it’s all part of life.

Recently I was coaching a client who told me about his previous day.  “One of my team members walked in and without any warning told me she was quitting. That, very day.” About two hours later three more of my team gave notice and also walked. I just feel like quitting myself.  How the hell can I pick myself up from here?”

I asked him three questions.  “Are you prepared to take the responsibility for losing four of your team members and are you ready to make some adjustments to your management?  Are you able to tell me that the team members who remained with you are better ‘team players’ than the ones who left?”   And the third and most important question of all, “What are the benefits of losing these team members”?

A week later we met again.  He shook my hand and said “What I realised, was that I was supposed to go through that.  That was a negative blessing in disguise because I had to clear those people out in order to take me to the next level.  I feel more in control and more on track than I did before the upheaval” 

Gratitude takes discipline. It really does require work.  I’m certainly not perfect at it, but I work on it daily.  Finding gratitude is the ability to stop every day and see the good things in your life. For me, I write down several things daily that happened in the past 24 hours that I am grateful for.  Remember – what you focus on gets bigger, so choose to focus on good things.  Demonstrating Gratitude is stopping now and again and giving thanks to people that have supported and helped you.  Gratitude is slowing down over Christmas and focusing on your family instead of worrying about your business.  The most successful people in business I have ever met have the most Gratitude.  I am sure if you look at the most successful people you know, that they too demonstrate high levels of Gratitude.

If you have had a tough year, remember the guy who stopped complaining about not having a good pair of shoes when he met someone without any feet.   Put things in perspective.  If you can put a roof over your head and you have food in your fridge, you are luckier than 70% of the world’s population.

Watch this video as it’s a powerful reminder of how good life is.  This video changed my life and I hope it does the same for you.

Have a grateful day,

Andrew

P.S. we love to hear your comments so please leave us a comment and tell us what you think….