Dave Braun
00:00:02
Hello, everybody! Welcome to the HireMyVA Team and Business Building Podcast brought to you by Yoogozi.com. And in this podcast and at HireMyVA, we help you to reclaim your freedom through hiring and thriving with virtual assistants, without breaking the bank- without breaking your bank, which is the most important bank. And I’m Dave Braun and again, as I’ve been here with all these episodes, I’m here with Larry Broughton, my fantastic friend and mentor and buddy traveling with me through life like crazy. Larry, what’s going on?
Larry Broughton
00:00:35
Hello handsome Dave. Same old stuff, different day.
Dave Braun
00:00:41
That can be good. And that can be bad.
Larry Broughton
00:00:43
Well, I’ll say this, it’s almost two weeks since we’ve been together since we’ve seen each other in person, I think that might be the first time in a year. So I’m looking forward to getting together tomorrow.
Dave Braun
00:00:57
Yeah. That’s going to be a blast.
Larry Broughton
00:00:58
You know with our buddies, It’d be good to,
Dave Braun
00:01:01
And I got a special dinner plan. I don’t know if you guys have had this before my famous chicken pot pie. Did I serve that to you guys before?
Larry Broughton
00:01:08
I don’t know. I know that I’ve had it at your house before.
Dave Braun
00:01:11
Okay. Probably did that a long time. Yeah. One of those comfort food things. Well anyway,
Larry Broughton
00:01:16
We’re like, well, it’s winter here. When we’re recording this. It’s winter in orange county as winter is that gets, it’s going to be a a fridgid 72 degrees tomorrow.
Dave Braun
00:01:26
I know. I’m like I’m chilled to the bone. I got to get my parking gloves out.
Larry Broughton
00:01:32
Sorry, everyone in your winter Wonderland.
Dave Braun
00:01:36
Yeah. If you’re in Minneapolis right now, you’re probably saying, well, at least we don’t have fires
Larry Broughton
00:01:41
Earthquake.
Dave Braun
00:01:43
That’s right. All right. Well, what I tell you, I’m thankful that I live here where the weather is nice of which that is related to our question.
Larry Broughton
00:01:55
Oh, it is. What’s our question?
Dave Braun
00:01:57
So the question is, how do I become more thankful? How do I become more grateful?
Larry Broughton
00:02:04
That’s actually a good point. Can we talk about this all the time, right? Like you gotta be grateful and, but what do you actually do to get out of it? It’s interesting because you know, a lot of folks and this might actually be a really good topic, Dave. You and I have had conversations about anxiety and depression lately, because there are people in our, both of our lives who, you know, struggle with that. And it’s hard when you’re in those moments to actually be grateful. So when you say, can you w what are you grateful for? How do I even become grateful? When I feel like the world is crashing in around me, right? You shared with me a couple of weeks ago, a, a video, or you told me about, I think he told our buddies about this to a pastor at Mariners,I think that a series on, on this, and maybe there’s a way, cause I know that you watched the whole series only saw the first one. Maybe there’s a way to weave that in for sure. Just to make it about how do you become grateful or thankful? Good one. All right. I’ve got some ideas cooking. Alright, let’s talk.
Dave Braun
00:03:12
So we, we talked about in 107, the importance of being grateful, what it does- It helps us to be more positive energy, attracts people to us, all that kind of stuff. Right? So if you haven’t listened to that, go back and listen to that. Before you come here to this one, which should be 109. So this is really important as how, like, what are some steps? What are some methods, easy things that you can do to do that. And you know, Larry, you know, me, I like to put together some type of a system for myself because I tell you if I don’t, I’ll forget.
Larry Broughton
00:03:47
If this is the first time you’ve ever listened to one of these podcasts, Dave’s background is as an engineer, he plots things out. He’s got whiteboards, he’s got wire screenings or whatever you call the damn things for everything in life. And it’s good. It works for him. And he’s one of the most disciplined guys that I know. So that’s great.
Dave Braun
00:04:04
Let me give you guys a random tip. Can I do that? Just a random tip. I learned from my financial advisor of all kinds of strange. So what I’m doing now, because I have a whiteboard. If you can’t see this,
Larry Broughton
00:04:17
You have a white board, Dave, I see two white boards behind you
Dave Braun
00:04:21
I use them all the time, but how do you keep the pins from drawing out? Well, one of the things you can do is store them upside down. If you can’t see right now, if you’re just listening, I have a cup of coffee cup and I have the dry erase markers upside down so that the ink always is ready at the tip.
Larry Broughton
00:04:42
You know sometimes, people lay those flat.
Dave Braun
00:04:46
Yeah. Right. And I’ve gone away from that. So it’s like a little system. I’ve got my cup of markers.
Larry Broughton
00:04:53
Good bit of information.
Dave Braun
00:04:55
You know, and Larry, I’m grateful for that tip. And I’m grateful now that my markers are, you know, they’re nice and strong and not faded fast.
Larry Broughton
00:05:05
For how many times that we’ve been at your house trying to go to you, that white board. Nothing. We can’t find where it works.
Dave Braun
00:05:12
Yeah. I know. All right. All right. Well, we’re, we’re kinda, I’m on a tangent here, but Hey, it’s our podcasts, we can do what we want. Okay. So let’s talk about how some methods, right. You’re talking about something that we’ll share in a little bit later, but let’s talk about maybe the first step. All right. The overall, the first step to do this?
Larry Broughton
00:05:33
Who step or this, this is your step that you’ve come up with. This is your system. You’re saying.
Dave Braun
00:05:37
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And this is what I’ve done that helps me. And what I’ve seen is help other people as well.
Larry Broughton
00:05:46
Okay, alright, good. Let’s hear it.
Dave Braun
00:05:47
You know, so like really the first step is you gotta have somebody in your life that you can share things that you’re grateful with. I mean, like, like an accountant, I’m not really an accountability partner, but somebody at least to listen or, you know, you can text them or something because you’ve got to be able to, it’s one thing to say it in your mind, but you gotta be able to release that gratitude that you’ve got into the world by getting it out of you. Otherwise you’re gonna be left to your own devices. You’ll have, you’ll do it for a day or two. And then all of a sudden you will stop, stop doing it. You know, and I know I was going to say is one of the things that helps us keep on track, we were just referring to, it is our Wednesday meetings amongst the four of us guys. We’re constantly expressing gratitude to each other during those meetings.
Larry Broughton
00:06:38
Well, it’s not just a nice thing to do. I mean, research has definitely found that expressing gratitude strengthens relationships. So whether it’s your romantic partner or a friend or a team member, actually telling them specifically what you’re thankful for builds bonds. So that’s, that’s a really important thing. I’m glad you said that, Dave, so share your gratitude with people.
Dave Braun
00:07:01
Yeah. You get, you got to have somebody who’s willing to listen or you know, that that’s part of your relationship. And maybe, you know, if you guys have accountability partners that use for cheating, your goals or any error or something like that, maybe what you could do is just say at the very beginning of that, you have your meeting with them, you just say here’s three things I’m grateful for. Yeah.
Larry Broughton
00:07:23
Yeah. Yep.
Dave Braun
00:07:25
Okay. Here’s another quick, easy step. And I’ve got that down as say thank you everywhere you go. So thank you for anything it’s like, thank you for, you know, being a great neighbor. Thank you for, you know, giving me that great hot cup of coffee, you know, I really, really appreciate it. So it’s, and it’s even saying, thank you, when I say thank you for that hot cup of coffee, it’s even saying thank you to your vendors. Even if you pay people to do things for you, it, it still, it goes a long way to helping you be a more grateful person by continuing to thank you. Thank them.
Larry Broughton
00:08:03
Yeah. I think this is particularly important in the retail sector. So many people treat retail workers as our slaves. And I just, that turns my stomach when I see that happen. I happened to have been out on Thanksgiving day. I went to a grocery store and had a meal out as well. And, and I mean, it’s specific point to thank them that they said, Hey, you’re away from your family today. You know? And one, the one woman actually got teary. She said, nobody’s thanked me for that today. You know, that’s sad, you know, of all days you gotta be thinking people on Thanksgiving, but you’re right. I think making it a habit where you do it all the time. And I’ll talk about that when it gets my current, I guess, but creating the habit, recognizing moments to thank people. I know my son picks up on it. He, he, he used to comment on all the time, cause I would go out of my way to make sure and thank people that were, you know, retail workers, just to try to make them smile that they’re having a bad, bad day. So you have no idea what struggles they’re going, they’re fighting at the moment.
Dave Braun
00:09:18
Yeah. And saying that saying thank you to your clients too, just for being, helping, you know, helping you out. I mean, that’s, that’s great too. So, you know, you know, you’ve talked about Thanksgiving day. So we had Cheryl’s side of the family over as long, most 20 of us approximately. And so her niece that came over, she ended up at the end of the day, giving my wife a thank you note for doing all the cooking and all that stuff and hard to a restaurant. And she didn’t have to do that at all. We weren’t expecting it. We were almost like, no, we do this for family, but it was really nice for her to say thank you. And it made us feel really good. And I’m sure it made her feel great just giving it to us. Right.
Larry Broughton
01:10:04
That’s really good. Okay.
Dave Braun
01:10:08
Okay. Maybe the next step would be, is just like about, you know, we’re talking, we’re talking about habits here, right? So you got to create some kind of a ritual and the best way to do this is on a daily basis. If you’re going to create a new habit, you want to anchor it to something that you’re already doing. So maybe you do it right before you brush your teeth in the morning at night. That’s a great time to do it. Or at least do a once a day before you, you don’t take a shower assuming you’re taking a shower or bath every day, if you don’t want, then you’ve got to anchor it to something else.
Larry Broughton
01:10:42
Bedtime, waking up. Yes. Anchor to those. Yeah.
Dave Braun
01:10:49
Yeah. So, and so now I want to talk about, you know, the person that you, you had mentioned that at our church, where I heard about this method and it’s really working for me right now, so Kenton Beshore, he’s the former head lead or lead pastor at Mariners church where I go, he’s another pastor emeritus. So he comes in, he talks every now and then and speaks he’s great. But he says, studies show, you’re supposed to do the following two times per day. And the following two times per day, I want to list three things you’re grateful for and then tell someone about it. Right? So that goes back to our first step is having somebody to tell it to, right? So you’re supposed to do, do this. You’re supposed to come up with three things that you’re grateful for. Do it twice a day and tell one person about it each time.
Larry Broughton
01:11:44
That’s so good. Now those things that you’re grateful for could be anything, nature, people, community, shelter, health, right? The ability to feel warmth. Many folks, if you, if you know me, I’ve spent a lot of time in the veteran community, I’ve got friends, loved ones who are, you know, don’t have feelings and part of their body anymore that you’re able to do that. It’s a good thing. It’s a, maybe it’s amazing what happens when you start noticing these things and you feel grateful for them. So you can find three things that you’re grateful for, for sure.
Dave Braun
01:12:17
Yeah. And I think sometimes though we will be like, oh, I, you know, I said this yesterday or, or, you know, okay. I’m grateful for my family. So one of the things that we try to do at Thanksgiving dinners is we go around the dinner and ask, ask people to say one thing that they’re grateful for. And of course, everybody says, I’m grateful for my family. I’m grateful for this. And it gets hard for people to really think about it. So in 107. I think you talked a little bit about a way to come up with more things that you might be grateful for, you might want to share that?
Larry Broughton
01:12:47
I don’t remember what exactly what I said in 107, but I can talk to you this generally what I do in life. I try to incorporate this feeling of gratitude recognition in both my personal and professional life. So in the professional life each morning, we have a morning standup. It’s, it’s a very brief call when we do them via zoom right now, because people are spread out all over the place. And before we talk each leader in the organization, Hey, here’s what I’m working on today. And here’s what my victory is where yesterday is, we talked about what we’re grateful for you, right? Family, friends, pets, health come up often times, you know, being part of the organization oftentimes comes up. So there’s that. But on the personal side, I try to do my gratitude journal at night because studies have shown that we tend to focus on in our sleep, what we last we’re focusing on while we awake and we kind of wake up the way we go to sleep.
Larry Broughton
01:13:45
But my feeling is that if I’m focusing on gratitude, as I drift off to sleep, I don’t actually write or not, I don’t often write my gratitude journal anymore. I have it in my head some days I do maybe once a month, I actually write, write them down nowadays. But when I was trying to get healthy 10 years ago, I literally wrote them down every single day. And so, and those are things like we talked about family and friends and those kinds of things. And on those really bad days, Dave, when I couldn’t even do that, like she pissed me off today and he’s, you know, the jerk and I’m not very thankful for them today as I was laying in bed, I would think, okay. At least, okay. Start with top of my head. Okay. I still have a few hairs on my head.
Larry Broughton
01:14:30
My eyes still see, I can still breathe through my nose because I have friends who can’t don’t have noses anymore. Or I can still formulate words with my mouth because you know, I, that tumor scare where they thought they were gonna remove part of my mouth. Remember that? So breathe through my mouth. Right. I’ve got fingers that work, my elbows bend. And I started cutting my body and just go all the way through. And I could just feel my body sinking down in the mattress as I was doing that. Right. So that’s kind of just one technique that I would use or do use virtually every day.
Dave Braun
01:15:09
Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s perfect. Thinking about your senses right? In your body and every little aspect of your body. Like, you know, as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, my throat, I was thinking, you know, I’m grateful for, you know, being able to swallow. Right. And, and that my taste buds, to being able to enjoy, you know, food and I mean,
Larry Broughton
01:15:30
So the way you can process things, because a lot of people who have that traumatic brain injuries who can, or they’re so wrapped up in mental health that they can’t think clearly.
Dave Braun
01:15:42
Yeah. Another thing you can do is just take a walk and just start thinking of everything that’s out there. Like, you know, I don’t even have to take a walk. I’m looking outside my window and I see a fence, right. That, that we put up with our neighbors. Oh my gosh. I’m so thankful for that decision that we made to put up the, like the vinyl fence. So it’s not breaking down. It was a great decision, all of that stuff. Yeah. And it, yeah, it keeps, you know, certain things out and I’m grateful for my neighbor who was so nice and we split the cost and it worked out so great. I mean, you can just go on and on. If you look, just start looking around, you take a walk, you know, observe the trees and oh my gosh, there’s just so much. And the beauty that’s out there and even our eyes being able to discern color. Right, right. There’s no, there’s no reason why we have to have that in fact.
Larry Broughton
01:16:34
That’s right. Yeah. And we know that with the increase in drug addiction and mental health problems right now, we’ve got a growing, I’m not going to use the word homeless, but there are people it’s a politically charged thing, but there are people who are sleeping on the streets right now. So if you’re laying in a bed and you’re doing this, you’re laying in a bed doing it, let’s be grateful for that. Yeah. So that’s, that’s kind of my process that I go through and incorporate into my business by doing a morning standup call and out loud saying what I’m grateful for to other people. And I can tell you that it feels really awkward when you first start doing this, but we’ve been doing this for a long time in my organization. And it’s funny how over time people begin to get much more tender when they talk about this stuff now. Right. Yeah. And much more open and vulnerable about it. And so that’s how I incorporate the professionally and personally, that’s what I do personally.
Dave Braun
01:17:36
Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. And I think the last thing that I would want to talk about is, and I remember listening to Gary Vaynerchuk and he talked about a little bit of this, but you know, like I have my little grandson, Logan, who’s getting close to a month and a half old already, man, freaking unbelievable. But you know, just starting to think about the odds in his life of being where he is and it is very similar for all of us, all of you folks listening to this or watching this, right. Just you know, being born, what are the odds against being born with all the different, you know, eggs and sperm cells and all that stuff, as well as, you know, so many couples struggling with fertility. What are your odds of actually being born, right. Yeah. Being born in the United States and, you know, being born, like you talked about with, you know, your fingers and having all your toes, your organs, some people aren’t.
Dave Braun
01:18:36
Right. Yeah. And for, you know, my grandson being born to parents that love them, like crazy and having both sets of grandparents that love him, plus he’s got plenty to eat. And then, you know, compared to when we had our kids, all the different, cool things to keep babies safe and keep them happy and healthier. I mean, there’s more things now. It’s a great time that we live in for so many things. How many times have we thought about being grateful for the fact that, you know, wow, I, I, you know, I live in, you know, 2020, almost 2022 versus, you know, 1910.
Larry Broughton
01:19:15
I said there is so many things to be grateful for. I mean, we could spend five hours just going through that kind of stuff. But clearly, clearly we are living in the safest from a health perspective, from a violence perspective, from a war perspective, best time ever in human, in this prosperous. Yeah.
Dave Braun
01:19:36
Yeah. Yeah. So, so much to me you’re right. So much to be grateful for. So I think we’re grateful for people listening to us.
Larry Broughton
01:19:43
Yeah. Well, let me kind of get, so let me rip on a couple of things, you know, in addition to the kind of keeping the gratitude journal that we talked about, I think that’s really important, but I don’t want to get wrapped too much around on the actual on this, but I do think that let’s be realistic. You know, Dave, you know, me, I’m a follower of the Stoics. I think we have to face reality. Reality is our friend and you know what life is going to beat you up sometimes. Yeah. And how we battle those problems is where we find meaning. And so the truth is you’re going to have bad times. One way to feel grateful is to remember the bad times. And I don’t mean ramble in them and those bad times, and really replay them in your mind, but remind yourself that, Hey, there’s been some bad times in my life.
Larry Broughton
02:20:30
Here’s what they are and I’m not there right now, so that’s something to consider if you’ve been part of any kind of recovery program, you know that there’s some, some folks talk about, ask yourself three questions. When it comes around this topic, what have I received from this person or this situation. What am I thankful for there? What have I given to this organization? What am I given to the community? What have I given to my family? And here’s the thing that gets a lot of people stuck when they’re in this recovery thing is what troubles or diffuculties have I caused today? We have to face that stuff, Dave, we can’t just push it off and live and pretend it’s going to be sunshine and lollipops and rainbows every day. If we’re not recognizing those things, it’s hard to recognize the good things.
Larry Broughton
02:21:22
Yeah. That makes sense. Oh yeah. All right. So there’s gotta be a little bit of discernment in there as well. You know, we talked about the senses, but I do do think you also, sometimes you need visual reminders in your life. You know, some people have got signs around their, their, their homes or they’ve got images that remind them of things that they’re, that they’re grateful for, where there’s pictures of your family, family members, for instance, we need visual clues of that to remind yourself of how many great things you’ve got in your life. Right. I think that also Dave, we need to make a commitment, make a, almost like a Laval, like a pact with yourself that you’re going to practice gratitude. You kind of talked about this earlier. I just want to put an exclamation point on it. When you talked about, Hey, go out and look for the good things in life, but you got to commit to it.
Larry Broughton
02:22:18
Like I vow that I’m going to count my blessings every day. Now I’m going to post it. Something happens when you make a commitment to yourself, but things actually start to come to fruition, but we also have to watch the weight. How do we talk to ourselves? How do we talk to each other languaging? You know, I say this all the time, words have meaning. And so instead of saying, Hey, this is happening to me or I caused this to happen. I think we ought to be counting our blessings. Hey, I’m grateful for the gifts. I’m grateful for the givers I go through and count those things. I feel fortunate. You know, I’m recognizing the abundance that, that, that comes to my life. I think you need to they give you to do that. And I guess maybe the last thing that’s coming to my mind is I used to say fake it til you make it.
Larry Broughton
02:23:12
And I know that’s not really a great thing to do now in my life. But I do believe that studies are showing this, just by the act of smiling and saying, thank you gets you closer to those feelings. The brain doesn’t differentiate between a fake smile and a real smile, you know, in the beginning. And do you ever walk down the street and smile at somebody? Then we talk about this on a recent podcast. We did. If you’re walking down the street and you smile at someone, they’re going to smile back. There’s two reasons why they’re not going to smile back. One is they are intentionally fighting it. And the other thing is they’re psychotic or something. When you smile at someone reflexively, you smile, like someone’s going to smile back at you. And if you smile at them and they don’t and you just got to send them a blessing, you know, they’re probably, they may be fearful like, right.
Larry Broughton
02:24:06
Maybe they’re fearful. Like you’re, you’re creepy. Why are you smiling at me? You know? But just, you know, pray for them or send them a blessing, like open up their heart. You know, that they can accept a smile and to start seeing what happens. I encourage folks who commit to this for 30 days and see what happens. And boy, we have dumped a lot on folks. I mentioned, maybe we should have done a preamble of this podcast. We have to get a pen and paper ready going to be a lot coming your way. But I had no idea what we’re going to do. You know, that there could be this many value bombs or ideas on here. But if you want those people who are really committed to this, and maybe you’re struggling with gratitude or anxiety or depression, maybe go back and listen to this and just a piece of paper or take notes on your phone and just try a couple of things.
Larry Broughton
02:24:52
If you pick three things, if you make three things and commit to those and commit to it for 30 days, I’ll bet you you’ll see, you know, big improvement. And the three things I would say Dave, but they, they ought to be doing is identify every single day three things that you’re, they’re grateful for. Community shelter, nature, whatever it is, start your gratitude journal. I’d say that’s number two. And do these practice some kind of gratitude rituals, you know? Right. Whether tell somebod, yeah. Tell us why that’s part of the ritual that I would throw in there. Maybe it’s saying grace before a meal, you know, pausing for gratitude before your meal, doesn’t have to be a religious thing. Are you grateful that you have food in front of you? You know, I think if you do all the things that we talked about and you do those three things, you’re going to see a dramatic shift in 30 days. So that’s, that’s what I would say. Awesome. Awesome. That’s all I got to say about that.
Dave Braun
02:25:51
I think that’s a great way to wrap up. Well, I’m sure folks, if you’re listening to us still, you were probably grateful that you were done.
Larry Broughton
02:26:01
They’re rolling their eyes really, okay.
Dave Braun
02:26:06
So we are grateful for you to listen and we’d be even more grateful if you could do one of these three things or if not one, just all of them, two of them preferably all of them, but subscribe to the podcast for sure. And if you haven’t already done, so do it on your iPhone, your Android phone, do it on YouTube at the subscribe button and click on the little bell next to it to get reminders. The second thing would be if you’re grateful for us providing this information, give us a rating. Preferably five stars, leave a comment below this video. Any comment because it will help us get the word out. And then the third thing is go to Hiremyva.com. If you want to get some more information on our course and community. And of course our White Glove Service, where we find a rockstar VA for you, we have a client right now. That’s, I’m doing some final interviews with four people, and we’re excited about how we’re going to be able to help her. So remember though, even without experience, you learn how to prepare for hire and thrive with virtual assistants using the HireMyVA course and community. Larry we’re like, I mentioned about this one person. We’re helping people through this right now. We want to help you too. So go to Hiremyva.com for more information on all of that.
Larry Broughton
02:27:24
Hey, there’s so much wrapped up in this podcast. We talked about it. I kind of wish we would have done this and drop this, you know, on Thanksgiving or something like that. But it’s, there’s never a wrong time to find gratitude.
Dave Braun
02:27:37
In fact, we should, we should probably redo one of these at six months from Thanksgiving, whenever that is. And seeing them in January, February, March, April, right? Yeah. We need those reminders throughout the year, I think.
Larry Broughton
02:27:51
Yeah. So do yourself a favor my friends, do the world of favor, go do something significant today. God bless you. God keep you. God hold you. All right, my friends. Go get them. We’ll see you next time.
Dave Braun
02:28:01
Bye. Bye everybody.
